As if it had belatedly recognized Elena’s presence, the ground buckled, trembling under the weight of her command. Even the nearby trees were beginning to warp.

Seeming to come to a similar realization, the beast leapt away.

Elena remained unfazed by its sudden movements.

“Interesting… it is absence, yet it interacts with presence, and…”

The pressure being released from her hand dissipated.

“Is this how movement works here?”

Then, her body rapidly accelerated– moving well beyond humans’ acknowledged limits back on Earth.

Within a blink of an eye, she closed the gap, appearing before the beast with one hand clenched into a fist.

Allow me to strike it.

The density returned, wrapping layers around her arm before being driven directly into the chest of the beast.

Just as Elena had predicted, no harm came to herself. Instead, this immense strength that she never could’ve imagined wielding had easily blasted the beast back into the trees.

However, this seemed to only irritate the beast more, as it soon returned, bounding forth on all fours. Its body surged, countless tendrils emerging from its back.

“It’s unharmed by pure force as well…”

The faces reflected within its depths flickered before vanishing. 

Then, an array of powers manifested throughout and around it.

Spears, flames, armored limbs–

What intrigued Elena was not the mere presence of these abilities, but the nature of their presence.

“They don’t belong to it.”

She could feel her mental processes accelerating– This was her domain.

To Elena, it was a talent much akin to being “in the zone” that only presented itself when enough evidence had accumulated to reach a plausible hypothesis, or even a definite conclusion.

“Conceptual absence.”

“Presence interacts with it.”

“The force I command is presence made concrete.”

“The powers it commands are not its own– Foreign instabilities.”

Intuition filled the rest of the gaps. 

“If I strike its conceptual absence with conceptual presence, I can force it into equilibrium.”

She relaxed her posture and listened to the world around her.

“Don’t hit it directly. Don’t create pressure.”

This was the conclusion she had arrived at.

Rush forth and become zero.

Slowly, she raised her arm towards the beast, resting her middle finger against her thumb.

“Fire,” she whispered.

Her surroundings seemed to slow and pause, as if it were waiting– digesting her command.

Then, with a flick of her finger, the weight of the world followed along without condensing into the same pressure that previously allowed her to make contact with the beast.

Simply put, it was the energy of being– of existing.

That energy slammed against the beast’s body, and just like that, it vanished– not destroyed or disintegrated or crushed– it simply stopped being.

***

Irin forcefully blinked a couple times. He rubbed his eyes, even looked away– then back again.

There was no possible way to misinterpret what he just saw. 

Whoever that woman was, she had just effortlessly destroyed a reflector-type dream leech without uttering a single command of shaping.

And not only that, during that battle, she seemed to have been… toying with it…?

“Did I… summon her? Is that what my shaping does now?”

Whatever the case, he felt that the next natural thing to do would be to introduce himself to her.

But, as he took a step forward, he inadvertently stepped on one of the twigs that had been blown around during the clash, causing it to echo out with a loud crunch. The sound rang through the clearing far louder than it had any right to.

In the next instant, the woman had turned around, her distant yet piercing gaze seeming to peer directly into his soul, and her fingers primed in the same position she had assumed against the dream leech.

“Wait! Wait! I’m not a dream leech!”

He defensively raised his hands.

Hearing those words, the woman’s eyes relaxed as she lowered her arm.

Peeking out from behind his defenses, Irin apprehensively checked to make sure he wasn’t at risk of being erased.

“Huh. You’re… human, right?”

“Uh, yeah…?”

The woman looked around at the jungle surrounding them.

“In that case, do you know where we are right now?”

Irin suddenly recalled that she had first appeared after he summoned what he thought was a meteor.

“Ah, that's… We’re currently in one of the worlds of the Wild Ring, but if you tell me where you came from, I can probably help you get back. We can’t keep going from here anyways,” he said, gesturing towards the ruined archway.

Casually, she replied, “I’m from Earth.”

The two stood staring at each other in silence.

Irin’s mind blanked before he could finally process those words.

Earth wasn’t a world you could travel to or from.

“Y-you’re– WHAT?!”

The woman looked perplexed.

“I don’t know where this place is, but is this really that weird?”

Irin was baffled.

“YES! It is that weird! You– Earth– here– How?!”

“I really don’t know myself. I had a long day, argued with some idiot, went to sleep, and when I woke up, I found myself here.”

Irin narrowed his eyes.

Her story was full of holes and jumps that didn’t make any sense, but then again, her performance against the dream leech wasn’t something any normal inhabitant of the Outer Realms could accomplish.

But, following that logic, it made even less sense that someone from Earth of all places could do anything like that here.

Feeling like his mind was ready to overheat, Irin decided to brush his confusions aside and focus on the matter at hand.

“Well– What matters now is that we have to get out of this jungle. The gate leading forwards is broken now, so our only choice is to head back to the Outer Realms.”

“Alright, lead the way.”

With that, Irin began retracing his party’s steps back through the jungle with the mysterious woman following closely behind.

Every step only reminded him of the weight of the events that just transpired.

Silently, he could only hope that the rest of his party could safely make it to the next checkpoint.

“By the way, we haven’t introduced ourselves yet! I’m Irin, an adventurer seeking to reach the First Frontier!”

“Half of that makes no sense to me, but nice to meet you.”

“And you are?”

“Oh, right. I’m Elena.”

She paused, looking up at the stars in the sky.

“I guess you could consider me a dreamer.”

That word struck Irin more than any fight with a dream leech could have.

He froze, causing Elena, who hadn’t noticed, to bump into him.

“You’re… a Dreamer…?”